1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus, such as an ink jet printer, and a method of controlling the same, and more particularly, to a liquid ejecting apparatus including a heating unit that heats a landing target of a liquid to be ejected, and a method of controlling the same.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting apparatus is an apparatus which includes a liquid ejecting head that can eject a liquid from nozzles, in which various kinds of liquids are ejected from the liquid ejecting head. A representative liquid ejecting apparatus is an image recording apparatus, such as an ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as a printer), which includes an ink jet recording head (hereinafter, referred to as a recording head; otherwise, referred to as a liquid ejecting head ejecting liquid ink). Such a printer records an image or the like by ejecting and impacting liquid ink onto a recording medium, such as a recording sheet, from nozzles of the recording head. In recent years, the liquid ejecting apparatuses are not limited to such an image recording apparatus, and the liquid ejecting apparatus has been applied to various types of manufacturing apparatuses, such as apparatuses for manufacturing color filters such as liquid crystal displays.
In recent years, there is a case in which the printer is used for a purpose of printing a recording medium, for example, outdoor advertisement or the like, larger than the recording medium, such as a print sheet or the like used in a general printer for domestic use. In this instance, weather resistance of the recording is regarded as important, and, for example, a resin film made of vinyl chloride is preferably used. As the ink for use in printing the resin film, there is so-called solvent ink consisting of organic solvent as a main component. The solvent ink is superior in scratch resistance and weather resistance compared with water-soluble ink.
Since the resin film hardly absorbs the ink, the recorded image may blur. In order to cope with such a problem, a configuration for accelerating drying and fixation of the ink impacted onto the recording sheet has been proposed in which a heating unit (platen heater) that heats the recording medium on the platen is provided, and the recording sheet is heated by the heating unit (for example, see JP-A-2010-30313).
However, in the configuration which heats the recording medium by the heating unit, the heat is transmitted from the heating unit to the recording head, and viscosity of the ink varies as time passes. In general, if the temperature inside the recording head is raised, the viscosity of the ink is lowered. If the viscosity of the ink is lowered, the quantity (weight and volume) of the ink is increased when it is ejected at the same pressure. That is, an ejection characteristic is changed in accordance with the temperature. In this way, a concentration of the image printed on the film may be thickened.
In addition, for example, in a case in which the advertisement larger than a recording medium of the maximum size which is printable by the printer is printed, the advertisement which is scheduled for completion can be partially printed on a roll-shaped film, the printed film is cut to divide the respective portions, and then the divided portions are joined to each other, thereby making one sheet of continuous finished product. In the configuration in which the partially printed portions are joined to each other to form one sheet, there is a problem in that a concentration difference at the boundary portion is marked to lead to the deterioration in the image quality. In particular, since the variation in the temperature inside the head is remarkable from the time when the print starts in a low-temperature state of the temperature of the recording head to the time when the temperature of the head arrives at a normal state, such a problem is likely to occur.